The Making of This Writer by Ruth Smith Meyer

     As long as I can remember, reading and writing have been a central part of who I am. The reading part came very early in life, hearing my mother read stories to us—Bible accounts and tales from the Busy Bee series. Although Dad never read other than the Bible to us, he often had a book in his hand and shared historic and current happenings which inspired me to have an inquiring mind.

      For a Mennonite minister, he had quite an extensive library and encouraged us all to read. We soon learned that he couldn’t be persuaded to buy us toys, but if we asked for a book, he would find a way to get it for us. The teachers in the one-room school I attended added to the fascination for the written word. One chose interesting books from which to read a chapter every day after lunch. The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, The Secret Garden and Little Men, for example, were read with such enlivening expression it wasn’t hard to imagine the settings, and live along with the characters. My best friend and I shared books for the local library and read well over a hundred in any given year.

     Another teacher in my upper grades was such a vivid story-teller that many lessons were absorbed when we thought she was just talking and had forgotten to teach us our assignments for the day. She even attended readings by Stephen Leacock which left us awe-stricken after reading some of his writings. Imagine meeting a real live author in person! 

 My first attempt at poetry came from her suggestion to write a poem about Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. In my teenage years, my writing was mostly in the form of letters to 35 pen pals to whom I sent monthly missives. I enjoyed making my letters so interesting that these friends could enter my world through what I wrote to them. My dad was the editor of a monthly newsletter that went out to probably about 500 addresses. I helped with editing, typing them on to stencils, and drawing illustrations with a stylus before running them off on a Gestetner. Occasionally he’d let me write an editorial and a few of my poems were published. I’ll never forget the thrill it gave me to see my first one in black and white. In my early twenties, a bi-national magazine called Christian Living published one of my poems on their back cover. It’s funny to me now, but I was absolutely shocked to receive a cheque for that contribution. I didn’t know much about the publishing world. I would have gladly paid them for the honour and satisfaction of having my poem included! 

      Over the years I had many letters to the editor in newspapers, small articles in others and I wrote columns for different organizations and clubs for weekly newspapers. At the Seniors Day Center where I worked, I wrote a bi-monthly column Keenager’s Korner which was published in four different weeklies so had quite a large circulation. I also interviewed each of the seniors and wrote a short life-story and along with a picture inserted it in a binder called This is Your Life. Often those dear people remarked how interesting their life sounded when I got finished writing about it. I know it pleased them and I like to think it was an encouragement to them. I didn’t think of myself as a writer—I was just doing what I enjoyed. Still, I had dreams of someday becoming a writer and author.

     My husband promised when he retired, he’d do the bulk of the house work so I could pursue my writing. Meantime, I took college writing and English courses. When he died of colon cancer at 63, I thought I may never achieve my goal. Had it not been for Brenda Lundy inviting me to God Uses Ink, I may have dreamed forever.

      I waited a year and then attended what had become WRITE! Canada. I didn’t know a soul, for Brenda had succumbed to cancer by then. I was welcomed and nurtured and took in so much information my head was full and my heart was light by the time I came home.

      For months, I had dreaded wakening to another day without my beloved, but the morning after that conference, I awoke with the realization that I could scarcely wait to get up and begin writing. I literally sat up in bed and said aloud, “Hello, the rest of my life! I want this day to begin.” It was nice to have new purpose in life. My first writing after that was a week’s assignment for REJOICE! a daily devotional. When that was well-received, I had several ideas of what to pursue. I had in mind a book I could write, but all the advice I got at the conference was toward writing articles first. However the book idea wouldn’t go away, so I thought I’d just begin to get it on paper while working at other articles. But when I got started I typed from 9 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. day after day as fast as my fingers could type. Even at night I often awoke with an idea of what should come next. Of course it took a lot of editing and reworking after the initial writing but there was a lot of pleasure in that first draft. Not Easily Broken wasn’t published for a few years, but the sequel, Not Far from the Tree came a year later after that.

     Tyson’s Sad Bad Day was another project that grew out of a poem that came to me in the middle of the night, following the death of my daughter’s best friend and the need of her young niece and nephew to have an understanding of death as part of life. When I couldn’t find an illustrator, my horizons were stretched again as I drew the pictures to illustrate that children’s book. I’ve also had the joy of being part of three different anthologies—Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider, Grandmothers’ Necklace and Fifty Shades of Grace, and have had several personal experience articles in a variety of magazines.

     Another marriage, learning to know and love another whole family, another long journey with cancer and continuing medical appointments, have slowed the process on my next big project—my life story, Out of the Ordinary. But it is well on its way. I began the task mainly for my family, but as I share chapters with my writer’s group, I am affirmed time and again that it is worth sharing with a larger audience. I hope some of you will think so too. Coming from a conservative Mennonite heritage perhaps is a different existence than most to begin with, but there have been many parts of and incidents in my life that fit the title. Much as we all are similar, each one of us is unique and out of the ordinary—but this will be my story.